InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 9: Subterfuge ❯ Hawaii ( Chapter 80 )

'It's official.  I love Hawaii.'

Leaning in the doorway with his fingers curled around the top of the jamb, Evan rested his forehead against his raised arm as he watched Valerie as she wiggled around a little, adjusting her position on the towel in the pale sand.

'Dunno about Hawaii,' his youkai remarked casually, 'but I definitely approve of that bikini.'

Evan sighed heavily and grinned.  'Yeah,' he agreed, indulging himself in gawking at the gorgeous woman in the blood red string bikini.  'Yeah, I do, too . . .'

Which was not to say that he didn't about keel over dead when he'd first laid eyes on that sucker.  God, no.  He had, but if he had keeled over dead, he'd have died with a smile on his face and a big, fat hard-on . . .

Unfortunately, that last thing hadn't quite dissipated yet despite Evan's reassurances that the Li'l hEvan wasn't getting a damn thing.

'Just wrong,' his youkai fumed petulantly.  'She's our mate, right?  So why are we hanging out here and not out there, doing the claiming?'

Evan sighed and shook his head since the odds of that happened were just a hair better than the idea of the earth being struck by a Jupiter-sized meteor in the next thirty seconds.

In the last few days since Valerie's revelation, he had to wonder just how he'd missed it before.  After all, all the signs were there, and even if certain parts of that night were not completely clear in his head, he had known, hadn't he?  He'd known that she was the one . . .

"And if you're meant to be with her, then you'll find her again someday, right?"

At the time, Evan had given Madison the coldest look he could muster.  Considering she hadn't even glanced up as she'd imparted that little gem while she was filing her claws, Evan figured that she was just trying to put a good face on everything . . .

As the years passed, though, he'd started to think that the girl he'd met was either just a figment of his imagination or that he just hadn't known what the fuck he was looking for.  He'd never been in love with anyone, right?  So it stood to reason that he really didn't know a damn thing about how it would feel to actually find his mate . . .

Well, so far, he had to admit that it wasn't that different.  After all, he still had to convince her that she was the one for him—or vice versa, as the case might be.  It was a tall order, but . . . but Evan never had backed away from a challenge, had he?

Pushing himself away from the door jamb, he wandered out onto the bleached wood patio and down the wide steps that led to the beach.  It really was a picture perfect day, wasn't it?  Skies a clear, crisp blue with a breeze that carried just a hint of pungent brininess that tingled in his nostrils . . .

It was rare that he actually had completely free days when he was touring unless he was in the middle of traveling, but unlike most tours, Mike hadn't booked any ride-alongs, which was just fine with Evan.  Sitting on a bus with an interviewer who was watching him like a morbidly fascinating disease was tiresome at best.  Since they were scheduled to have been off for the next three days, though, he'd made sure that Mike understood that, until the day of the concert, Evan was completely unreachable.  Of course, there was one small condition that he'd had to agree to in order to secure Mike's cooperation, and while Evan didn't really like said condition, he was willing to bite the bullet in the long run . . .

"Why don't you book more dates here in Hawaii, Roka?" Valerie asked without opening her eyes as he ambled up behind her.  "You could go do your shows, and I could stay here . . . forever."

"Hmm," he drawled, sinking down beside her, staring at the rise and fall of her gorgeous breasts and cursing the thin bit of fabric that kept the most crucial parts of them from his ardent perusal.  "Sorry, V.  Two and a half days are all you get."

She heaved a sigh and pushed herself up on her elbows.  "So tell me.  How did you talk Mike into letting you stay here instead of at the hotel?"

Evan snorted and rolled his eyes.  "You make it sound like he's my fucking father or something," he complained with a shake of his head as he dragged his gaze off of her lightly bronzed skin.  She'd already possessed a nice, healthy glow, but in the colder weather of fall, it had started to fade just a little, and luckily for him, she seemed quite content to replenish it while he sat back and watched.  "I just told him, right?  I says, 'Now see here, motherfucker, I'm the boss, and what I say goes 'cause you can't tell me what to do!  I say when and where and fucking how fucking high, got it?  So I'm staying at my fucking uncle's house, and there ain't a damn fucking thing you can do about it, so if you don't like it, you can fucking suck my dick, cocksucker!'"

She stared at him for a long moment then sighed and shook her head slowly.  "What did you really barter with?  Your firstborn son?"

He broke into a wide grin and chuckled.  "Nah," he assured her pleasantly enough.  "I just had to swear that I wouldn't try to leave for any reason, whatsoever."

She seemed surprised.  "You promised him that?"

Shrugging as though the promise was of no real account, Evan pasted on a shit-eating grin and reached across her for her water bottle.  His hair brushed over her belly, and he almost laughed out loud when he saw the muscles under her skin jump followed moments later by a fierce wave of goose flesh.

"But you promised that you'd show me the area tomorrow," she pointed out, lips turning down in a very distinct frown.

"Sorry, baby.  I either had to make the promise, or we'd be stuck in the Honolulu Regency on the fifty-fourth floor."

Which was true, too, and that would have been even worse in his estimation.  At least here, he had access to a private beach without a hundred security guys around and without Mike breathing down his neck the entire time.  Even if he couldn't leave the grounds, at least he could walk around here without having to worry about safety issues that were never very far away when he was out on tour.

In fact, that was one of the reasons that he loved living in New York City.  There were more than enough famous people living there that the security issues weren't nearly as severe as they were anywhere else, and New Yorkers tended to keep to themselves a lot, probably because of the lack of real privacy that came with living so close together.  In any case, when he went out there, he might be asked to sign a dozen autographs or so, but it seemed to him that once most folks tended to leave him alone after he'd finished signing whatever they'd wanted signed.

She still didn't look very pleased, but she nodded slowly as she considered what he'd said.  "Well, if you have to be stuck somewhere, it might was well be here," she allowed.  "Hand me that tanning oil, will you?"

"I could help you with it," he offered.  He tried not to sound too anxious about it, but it must not have worked, because the look Valerie shot him could have frozen him, rock solid, instead.

"No, thanks," she replied, wiggling her fingers as she waited for him to give her the bottle.

Evan heaved a sigh to let her know that he believed that she was completely misunderstanding him—which she wasn't—but gave her the bottle.  She took it and squeezed a generous amount into her hand before making quick work of smearing it all over the very nice swell of her breasts.  He very nearly whined.

"Tell me something," he remarked at length, careful to keep his tone as casual as he could as she applied more oil to her belly.

"Hmm?"

"You . . . You mean what you said?" he asked, knowing that he was treading dangerous waters but needing to ask the one thing that had been bugging the hell out of him since that night on the bus when she'd asked him if he knew the name of that song.  "You've never, ever gotten off with a guy?"

She was going to tell him to go to hell.  He could tell in the way her spine stiffened, in the way she pressed her lips together in a thin line.  Nostrils quivering, she looked like she was at least trying to control her temper.  Evan figured he'd better say something to diffuse the situation before she ended up trying to clobber him . . .

"I'm not being an ass, I swear," he hurried to say, holding up his hands in surrender.  "It's just . . . It's wrong, you know?  Men are supposed to take care of their women . . . Why don't you give me these guys' names so I can find them and beat their asses?"

She didn't look entirely pleased with his claim, but at least she didn't look quite like she was ready to maim him, either.  Then she uttered a terse laugh as she stretched out on the bright beach towel once more and closed her eyes.  "I wouldn't waste your time on jerks like them," she countered, her cheeks pinking slightly—the only real sign of her discomfort with the subject at hand, "and yes, I'm telling you the truth . . ." She frowned suddenly then draped her forearm over her eyes.  "Well . . ."

Evan blinked.  "Well, what?"

Wrinkling her nose, she let out a deep breath, and for a moment, Evan didn't think she was going to elaborate.  "There was once," she ventured slowly, carefully, as though she was afraid to tell him . . . or maybe she wasn't quite sure . . .? "I don't know . . . I might have just imagined it . . ."

"Imagined what?"

"Him . . ."

"Him?"

She sat up suddenly, yanking the water bottle out of his hand and swallowing some of it before turning her scowl on him as she slowly shook her head.  "I don't know why I'm even telling you about any of that," she grumbled, though he had the feeling that she was more irritated with herself than she was with him.  "It was . . . one stupid night in college," she admitted.  "I met this guy at a party . . . Well, I guess you can't really say I met him.  I never even got his name . . . but . . ."

To Evan's surprise, he watched as about a million different emotions flickered over her features so quickly that he had to wonder if she had even registered any of them in her head.  The only one that lasted for more than a heartbeat was the last one, the one that lingered . . . and that one was full of . . . regret . . .? But she blanked that one out with a quick shake of her head and a crisp sigh.  "There was a lot of . . . stuff . . . floating around that house—stuff that wasn't exactly legal.  I didn't take anything . . . just drank a few beers . . . probably had a contact high just from being there.  Anyway, there was a guy, but . . . but I'm sure that the things I felt were all . . . influenced."

He thought that over and nodded slowly.  In his mind, he could still hear her labored breathing, her cries of pleasure.  No, that wasn't caused by any kind of contact high; not at all . . . but if Valerie wanted to believe that they were, then there wasn't much he could do about that at the moment.  He'd just have to make sure that she knew better later on, wouldn't he . . .?

"You remember anything about the guy?" he asked, taking the water bottle back and draining its contents in a couple gulps.

Letting out a long breath, Valerie shook her head.  "I never really saw his face very well," she confessed quietly, laying her cheek on her raised knees as she stared at him.  "That sounds bad, doesn't it?"  She forced a little chuckle and searched his face, trying to discern whether he thought that she was as pathetic as she felt or not.  "There was just . . . something about him," she murmured, her gaze losing focus, as though she wasn't really looking at him at all.  "I asked some of the girls I knew who had gone to the party, too.  None of them had seen him, and they didn't seem to know anyone who matched what little description that I gave them . . ."

Giving herself a mental shake, she flopped back on the towel and shrugged as if to dismiss the conversation completely.  "So anyway, to answer your question, no, I've never had an orgasm."

Smiling just a little—he couldn't help it when she blushed—he let it go at that.  He supposed that he really ought to be entirely offended on some level.  After all, she couldn't clearly remember what he often thought of as the best moment of his life.  On the other hand, he'd be more than happy to show her exactly what it meant, to be loved, both physically as well as mentally, and the idea of seeing the unmistakable wonder on her face was definitely worth something . . .

"Since you finished my water, rocker boy, you can refill it for me."

Evan chuckled and stood up slowly, taking a moment to stretch before heading back toward the house.  "You know, V, if you wanted to take off that top, I swear to God I wouldn't touch . . . unless you wanted me to, of course."

She snorted.  "Pig."

"What?  I'm just thinking of you," he protested innocently—too innocently.  "I'd hate for you to mar your fucking perfect gazongas with tan lines . . ."

Valerie snorted again, louder this time.  "Water, Roka," she stated again.

Evan laughed and shuffled away.  He hadn't really thought that she'd go for it, of course.

But he really had hoped . . .

Slowly opening her eyes, Valerie frowned at the violet sky overhead, wondering vaguely how long she'd been sleeping, wondering why she felt almost cold . . . and why she couldn't lift her arms or legs . . .

As her brain cleared, though, she gasped, eyes widening for a moment, only to narrow when she realized just what had happened.

"Roka!" she yelled, praying that he was within earshot—and swearing that she was going to murder him just as soon as he dug her out of the mound of sand that he'd buried her under.  "Roka!"

She gasped when Evan leaned over her, his face upside down but the jackass grin on his face entirely recognizable.  "You bellowed, my love?"

"Get me out of here so I can break your legs," she gritted out.

Evan's grin widened, and he scooted back, only to crawl around her and straddle her stomach—or better, to straddle where her stomach should have been but was now a mound of sand instead.  "Now these are some wicked nice galunk-galunks, don't you think?"

Shifting her gaze downward, Valerie uttered a low growl when she finally noticed what she should have before: not only did that rotten little fucker bury her in sand, he also seemed to have had an overwhelming desire to play Cain Zelig, and from what she could see, he'd gone over the deep end in bestowing her with the biggest set of jugs she'd ever seen—complete with nice, round rocks where her nipples should have been.

"So dead, Evan," she grumbled.  "Dig me up!"

"Mammary . . . all alone in the moonlight . . . I can smile at the old days . . . they were beautiful then . . ." he sang, entirely ignoring her plight as he ran his hands over the sandy mounds, pausing only long enough to roll the rock-nipples between his fingers, which only served to illicit a very loud, very irritated growl from Valerie, who still had yet to see anything at all of amusement in her current predicament.

"Great . . . not only are you channeling your, what?  Great grandfather?  But you're channeling Andrew Lloyd-Webber, too—and I don't think he'd find your new lyrics amusing in the least . . ."

"I remember . . .  a time I knew what perkiness was . . . let my mammaries . . . rise again . . ."

Heaving a sigh, Valerie struggled, trying in vain to move her arms and legs, to no avail.  "Dead beyond belief, Roka," she growled.  "Get me out of here!"

His singing was only interrupted by his own misplaced laughter, and he stood up and dug into his pockets for his cell phone.  "Okay, okay," he relented, sounding anything but contrite, "let me get a picture first, though.  Maddy will think this rocks . . ."

"Hmm, yes, make sure you tell her what kind of flowers you want at your wake, you sick little monkey," she said as he snapped the first picture.  "Stop taking pictures and dig me up, damn it!"

Finally, though, Evan slipped the phone into his pocket once more and finally started to dig.

It didn't take him very long to free her arms, and once he did, she sat up, shoving his hands away as she scratched and kicked to free her legs.  By the time she was finished, he was sitting in the sand laughing so hard that he was slumped to the side.  Once freed, though, her own irritation waned quickly enough, soothed around the roughened edges by the sound of his heartfelt amusement, even if it was at her expense.

And much to her chagrin, she heard herself laughing, too, great bouts of it that seemed to well up from somewhere deep down: somewhere she hadn't known before.  Helpless against the barrage of laughter, she slumped against him, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and they sat like that for several minutes, just laughing and laughing and laughing.

"Oh," she groaned, wrapping her arm over her stomach when the laughter finally subsided.  Her stomach ached worse than it would have if she had just finished a hundred sit ups.  "Oh-h-h-h-h . . ."

Evan was finally winding down, too.  Tightening his arm around her neck to pull her closer, he kissed her temple and let go.  "Sorry, V," he managed to say, the devil's own glint lighting his gaze.  "I didn't want you to burn."

She blinked and stared at him, unable to wrap her brain around his brand of rationale.  For some reason, though, she found it entirely too funny for words, and she broke down in a fit of giggling once more.  "You . . . didn't want . . . me to burn . . . so you . . . buried me . . ." she gasped out between bouts of laughter.

He chuckled, too, but he was cut short when his cell phone rang.  "Hello?"

Valerie wiped her eyes and tried to get a grip on herself.  It was infinitely easier to stop laughing since Evan wasn't encouraging her.  Letting her head fall back as she closed her eyes, she winced just a little at the rampant ache that wrapped around her torso.

"Oh?  Is that right . . .? You sure you want to . . .?"

Pushing herself to her feet, Valerie made a face.  With every movement of her body, she was beginning to realize something else: she had sand where no human should ever, ever have it, and it was more than a little uncomfortable.

"All right; all right," Evan said.  "Yeah, whatever.  Just don't forget the beer."

Hanging up his phone, he heaved a sigh and shook his head but grinned.  "Something wrong, V?"

She made a face but waved away his question.  "Who was that?"

Evan snorted.  "Mike.  Wants to come by to go over the rest of the tour dates with me, but he said he'd bring dinner, so it's all good."

"Ugh . . . I need a shower," she muttered as she snatched up her towel and gave it a good shake, turning her face to the side to avoid getting sand in her eyes.  Then she turned on her heel and started toward the house.

Once in the shower, however, she discovered with a sigh that the sand infiltration was worse than she'd thought, and she wasn't entirely sure that she could blame it all on Evan, either.  In her haste to free herself from the sand prison, she'd probably done more damage to herself than he had when he'd packed her into a human sand sculpture.

Still, as much as she hated to admit it, it was kind of funny.  'That'll teach me not to fall asleep on the beach again,' she thought as she rinsed her hair after the fourth scrubbing.  By the time she stepped out of the shower, she figured that she'd been in the bathroom for at least half an hour, but at least she was finally sand-free.

Pulling on the floral print sundress she'd picked up at the store after stepping out of the airport in Honolulu, she didn't bother wasting time on her hair, opting instead to run a brush through it and catch it up in a high ponytail while it was still damp, and when she stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, she shivered slightly as the cooler air hit her still moist skin.

The house had enchanted her the first time she'd seen it.  Blonde wood trim, off-white plaster, beige marble floors . . . openwork rafters in the same pale wood . . . gauzy curtains that were draped over floor to ceiling windows—great sheet windows that ran the entire length of the rooms on the outside of the house . . . two bedrooms with two huge beds standing in the center of their perspective rooms with yards and yards of off white antique lace hanging from the ceiling, enshrouding the beds . . . a huge bleached stone and adobe mud fireplace in the center of the living room . . . no television, no radio, no  telephone laid in . . . The place had electricity, and everything from the ventilation system to the plumbing was state of the art with all the distractions removed . . . Not nearly large enough to be considered a mansion or an estate, it was more of a villa, maybe a bungalow—a gorgeous retreat that Evan had said was his great aunt and uncle's love nest.

The living room was empty, and from where she stood, she could see Evan outside, sitting on the patio steps, still wearing the same black shorts he'd had on all day.  He was tipping an ice filled glass to his lips, the liquid inside clear.  What she couldn't tell was whether it was water or something a lot stronger, but he seemed mellow enough at the moment.  Leaning in the high archway of the short hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms, Valerie smiled.  With his hair an unremarkable shade of brown and pulled up off his neck in a ponytail that was caught up under a baseball cap, he looked entirely normal, didn't he?  Just your average guy enjoying a lazy Saturday afternoon . . .

Except Evan Zelig was anything but average, and the lazy Saturday was in reality a Wednesday, two days away from what would easily be one of the biggest concerts on the island this year . . .

The thud of the door knocker interrupted her idyll, and she smiled.  She'd laughed when she saw the brass ring affixed to the door.  She'd only seen them a handful of times, and those were normally just for decoration and only on older houses.  This house was far from old—Evan had said that his great uncle had it built about ten years ago or so—but somehow, that piece fit in with the rest of the house, too.

Hurrying across the cool marble floor, Valerie ran up the three steps onto the platform in front of the door and pulled it open, expecting to see Mike, but blinking in surprise when she came face to face with a very pretty, very buxom brown haired woman clad in a black leather bustier and matching miniskirt over black fishnet stockings and six inch patent leather stilettos.

"Hi," she greeted, sticking out her hand to greet Valerie.  "I'm Bambi.  You must be V!"

Nodding slowly, Valerie frowned but reluctantly shook her hand, wondering absently if she needed to kill Evan Zelig for entirely different reasons.  "Nice to meet you," she forced herself to say as she pasted on what could only be described as a tepid sort of smile.

Bambi clapped her hands suddenly, her smile widening, revealing very deep dimples.  "So you're the one who proposed to my Mickey-Lee!" she said then snapped her fingers.  "I guess you probably call him 'Mike', right?"

Eyes widening in surprise, Valerie shook her head, tamping down the fierce blush at the abrupt reminder of her misadventures in Las Vegas.  "Your . . . Mickey-Lee?"

Bambi nodded happily and sashayed inside when Valerie finally took a step back.  "He's such a sweetie, right?"

"Who?  Mickey-Lee?" Valerie blurted rather daftly.  "Sweet?  Is he your, uh, boyfriend . . .?"

Bambi laughed—an airy sound that was just too 'cutesy' to be real—then she snorted and covered her nose like the sound had embarrassed her.  "Oh, no!   He's my husband."

It was entirely possible that Valerie could have easily been knocked over if she'd been hit with a feather at that.  For some reason, the idea that Mike might actually be married just hadn't occurred to her; not at all . . . and his wife . . .?  Well, she was just not exactly the kind of woman she'd have pictured to be the wife of the stoic manager. . . Evan?  Maybe.  Mike?  Not in a million years . . .

"He's here," Bambi said, apparently not noticing that Valerie was still in a state of shock.  "He's taking a call, though.  Said it was big boy stuff."

Valerie nodded slowly, closing the door and holding up a finger.  "Will you excuse me just for a minute, Bambi?"

She giggled and nodded, fluttering a hand dismissively.  "Oh, don't worry about me!  I need to use the little girl's room, if that's okay . . .?"

Valerie gestured at the short hallway.  "The door at the end," she instructed.  Bambi wiggled her fingers and kind of skittered away, and Valerie watched her go for a moment before pivoting on her heel and heading straight for the sliding glass doors.

"Did you know that Mike's married?" she demanded in a stage whisper as she stepped outside.

Evan craned his neck to look up at her and grinned.  "Yeah, actually, I do.  Bambi's here?"

Valerie snorted.  "Is that really her name?"

He nodded.  "Absolutely."

"Did her parents want a stripper for a daughter?"

He chuckled and stood up, brushing off his ass before he turned to face her.  "I think they thought it was funny," he ventured.

Valerie cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.  "You cannot be serious."

He shrugged.  "You ask her what her maiden name was?"

"Why would I do that?"

Grasping the handle on the door, Evan paused before pulling it open.  "Because it is pretty funny; that's why."

She caught his arm before he could go inside.  "What's so funny about it?" she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

Evan's grin widened.  "Her last name used to be 'Deere'."

Valerie's mouth fell open.  Evan reached over and pushed it closed with an index finger under her chin.  "N . . . No-o-o-o-o . . ."

Chuckling again when she slapped his hand away, he shook his head.  "If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

"She doesn't seem like his type," she said, ignoring Evan's statement since she really wasn't sure whether or not to believe that any parents could be quite that cruel.

"Well, the first time I met her, she'd tried to stow away on my bus," Evan admitted thoughtfully.  "She wanted a big, fat slice of 'the hEvan' . . ."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Valerie wrinkled her nose.  "And Mike still married her?"

Evan grinned.  "He caught her before I got on the bus, and . . . and you could say that it was just love at first sight."

"So she's his trophy wife," Valerie concluded, wondering just how she could have judged Mike's character so badly.  He hadn't struck her as the kind of man who would marry sometime just because she was hot.  Then again, he was a man, after all . . . so maybe . . .

"Doubt it," Evan snorted, pushing open the door and stepping inside.  Valerie followed him into the kitchen as he started pulling bottles of wine off of the built in rack and reading the labels.  "More like he's her trophy husband . . ."

"Come again?" Valerie asked when he handed her a bottle and opened the cupboard to pull down some glasses.

"There's not a doubt in my mind that she's definitely the brains of that particular operation," he allowed, opening a drawer and retrieving the corkscrew opener.

Valerie rolled her eyes.  "Just because you don't see eye-to-eye with him . . ."

He shook his head and uncorked the bottle.  "No way, V.  Ever met someone who was so fucking smart that they just kind of seemed a little flighty?"

She blinked and scowled and shook her head.

"Yeah, well, you have now."

"Oh?  And what does she do for a living?"

Evan grinned.  "She's a genetic engineer in charge of research and development on the team that's currently studying the deformity that causes endo-cetovarius-andova.  Anyway, ol' Mikey said that she couldn't get away—until he mentioned that we'd be in Hawaii, that is."

Valerie just stared, trying to decide whether or not she believed him.  Then again, he really didn't have anything to gain by lying, now did he?  She sighed, unable to reconcile the extremely well-endowed woman with her image of a lab rat, and she was kind of afraid that if she tried much harder, her brain might very well explode.

She was saved from further comment, however, when Micky-Lee himself stepped into the kitchen with Bambi pretty well glued to his hip.  "Hope you're hungry, Roka," Mike said with a broad grin as he handed a huge plastic bag to Evan.  "I wasn't sure what you'd want, so I bought a little bit of everything."

"Hi, Zel!" Bambi greeted, breaking away from her husband long enough to plant a noisy kiss on Evan's cheek.

"Hey, hotness," Evan quipped.  "You ready to leave that loser for a real man?"

She giggled again—good God, it was her real laugh—and waggled her index finger under his nose.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I'm a one man woman."

Sipping her wine, Valerie could only stare.  It was as though the usually surly and entirely too-uptight manager had been replaced by a more normal version.  In fact, he hadn't stopped smiling since he'd walked into the kitchen.  She wasn't sure exactly what to make of it, but she figured that it might well make for a rather interesting evening . . .